“All of my day goes in meetings!” I commonly hear these words, or similar refrains, when working with clients in a coaching context. The sub-text is “I cant get anything done because meetings prevent me from doing my work” and a sense that “I have no control over this”. It doesn’t have to be that […]
In both the coaching and consulting environments I am often approached by individuals or organisations to support them in resolving a particular issue confronting them. A foremost question in my mind is always, “Are they focussed on the right thing?” The tendency is for people to focus on the issue or behaviours that are right in […]
Very early in my career a manager of mine said to me “Everything has a dollar consequence and it is everyone’s responsibility to be a financial manager and use resources well”. That statement and the truth of his words has stayed with me always. Many times over the years, including recently while working with two […]
Why is it so many learning and development (L&D) and change initiatives fail to deliver? I have recently had anecdotal feedback from several agencies that contributed to the last APS State of the Service survey. While individual results indicated that up to 80% of staff had been involved in L&D activities, in the preceding year, […]
Is it ok to appear vulnerable or is it a weakness? Do we sometimes feel vulnerable but hide it because pride stops us sharing the fact? If we do expose our vulnerability to others, what are the consequences? The American researcher and author Brene Brown Ph.D., LM.S.W has done a great deal in recent times to […]
A friend was telling me the other day how she often has ideas suddenly occur to her about solutions to problems or things she ought to do but then the moment passes. She said sometimes she follows through but more often she forgets her idea, or cannot bring it back to mind with the same […]
Why is it that getting performance planning, personal development planning and performance reviews to work is so hard? In the past few days I had a discussion with a high level senior executive service manager responsible for human resource management for a large public sector organisation. He was expressing frustration about the unwillingness of people, […]
No two heads are the same. It’s obvious isn’t it? We know it. But then we forget to think about it! It was a quarter century ago, yes a full 25 years, and I was sitting with one of the deputy secretaries of the department I was then in. We were talking about a policy change […]
Image: © Sebastian Barrios Slight. Who is it you can really rely on to give honest feedback about your actions in the workplace and who can you trust to support you when you are trying to change behaviours or habits? I was motivated to write this post by several coaching and leadership discussions over the past year and a recent […]
The purpose of this post is to provide some insight to how the Life Styles Inventory ™ (LSI) developed by Human Synergistics International can assist individuals in measuring their level of effectiveness in the work place. THE LSI is one of a number of diagnostic tools available to test behavioural styles and strengths. In my experience working with leadership teams […]